A Break from Umpire Analogies?

Well, this is a nice change. In her first few minutes of testimony, responding to questions from Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan spoke about the Constitution as an enduring document that can be amended and interpreted in a changing world.

The founders recognized that “circumstances and the world would change,” Kagan said. They wrote about “unreasonable” search and seizure, but didn’t write a manual on what counts as unreasonable. “They didn’t do that because of this wisdom they had, because they knew the world was going to change,” she said.

Kagan outlines two varieties of change in constitutional interpretation: the formal amendment process and changing mores. She used as an example the passage of the 14th amendment in 1868, which established equal protection under the law, and the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board, which interpreted the amendment in a way never imagined in 1868 in order to desegregate American schools.

It’s nice to hear that Kagan won’t be engaging in the flawed “balls and strikes” analogy—we might end up hearing a conversation about what the Supreme Court actually does.

[Required reading: former Justice David Souter’s recent speech on this very subject].